Coffee

Today, my culture class took a field trip to an organic farm. These types of farms are becoming more popular in Costa Rica as more people try to "save" the Earth from impending destruction. However, this farm was cool. The word for "farm" is finca, and generally refers to agricultural endeavors.

The owner of the finca, Roderic was really smart about how he planted his farm and kept animals. Unlike conventional coffee plantations that we've seen as a class, Roderic worked extra hard to make his product good.

I haven't explained the plantations yet, have I? So sorry.
Coffee plantations (and banana plantations) are basically hectares of land with one type of plant. We got the eco-friendly version of the negatives, the biggest of which is that these plantations use up the nutrients in the soil without putting any back since they are monocultures. Also, these plantations force the plants to produce the same fruit under extremely unnatural conditions for that plant. For instance, the coffee plant is a shade-loving plant, but on the plantations, it is sown for several hectares without an ounce of shade. The reason the plant is still able to survive is because of the bug-repellant chemicals, the nitrogen-enriching chemicals, and the one that protects the leaves from sunscorch. Plantations are sown in a way that makes it quicker for the product to ripen, and easier for the workers to gather the crop. Organic production is not that way at all.

On Roderic's farm, he planted many trees and other bushes with his coffee plants. He keeps a dog, two goats, two sheep, and a horse so he can collect their manure, which he keeps in a compost building. Usually, compost is kept in some semblance of a pile, but since it needs moist shade to, er, decompose, Roderic built a structure around it. He showed our class how he digs a hole in his pile of compost, fills it with manure, and partially covers it. He often buys live bait, namely earthworms, to break down the manure into soil. According to Roderic, one earthworm works 24/7 for 16 years at the decomposition process. With the amount of worms he keeps in his compost pile, manure generally becomes compost after a month. With the more acidic manure of his goats and his sheep, he covers the manure with a bit of soil, straw, and a tarp, and "cooks" it at a temperature of 60 degrees (he didn't specify Celsius or Farenheit) to kill the "bad" bacteria like ecoli. The temperature is still low enough that he doesn't kill the good bacteria that will break it down into compost. He spreads his compost on everything--it has enough nitrogen in it to be like Miracle-Gro. His outdoor plants he sows according to a lunar calendar; he started just before the full moon, so now his plants get sunlight all day and all night, which makes them bigger and more fruitful. Roderic tries to use the seeds from the plants he eats, but some of the cabbages he grows in his green-house are specifically cultivated to be sterile and not have seeds. Those are the only seeds he buys. He also let us eat leaves straight from his plants. Since he doesn't use chemicals, careful washing is not necessary. I tried a piece of leaf from a purple broccoli, some lettuce, and rugula. Rugula was the weirdest taste: it tasted like a spinach leaf the second it was in my mouth, but all of a sudden became sour and spicy. I didn't care for it much. However, the lettuce was good. Lettuce doesn't have a flavor to me, just the texture of paper. But his lettuce tasted like a plant, and the leaf had lots of water. It gave a whole new meaning to Peter Rabbit's temptation of Mr. McGregor's garden.
He also grows cabbage, leeks, green onions and rice. I was very surprised at the diversity of his plants, but he told our class that when God made the Earth and the people, he put Adam and Eve in the middle of a garden, not a coffee field. Therefore, it is important to mix the plants because they each take and give something to the soil that other plants might need. His goats have a dual purpose: they are his lawnmowers. He said they eat everything in sight, and unlike cows, don't destroy the crops.
Roderic's production is low compared to his chemical-relying competitors. He feels that organic is better because it teaches him a valuable lesson: patience. Also, with two children and a wife, Roderic wants to be around as a father for his family. His wife works in the city, but the family could very easily survive on just the farm. He is one of two workers on his farm, the other a young Cuban.

After the tour, we were served with fruit from the farm and their very own brand of coffee. It was good. I don't even like coffee, but if all coffee tasted like that, I would drink it. I will definitely bring some back.

Bombs, and other expressions

I had a conversation today with my host family about the difference between a bomba de gasolina or a "gas station" and just a bomba, or a "bomb". My question was more or less why they were called something similar. I told them I wouldn't ever want to go to a place that advertised gasoline and an explosive device in the same name.

Here, the term bomba is pretty much used for everything. As far as the gas station is concerned, the term refers to the crank of "Lizzie" cars way back when, if I understood correctly. The Ticos also say bomba in songs of limmerick--I'll try to explain better: there are some very old and very traditional rhyming verses of two lines each, and in parties someone will start, and they'll recite one of the rhymes. At the end of the two lines, everyone yells, bomba! and if someone else knows another two lines, they'll sing next. It's like a call and response of the "southern" churches, except that each two lines will each tell a different story and I think the singer can modify his lines if he is quick enough to do so.

Other expressions of note:
¡Pura vida!--means "Pure life!", or "It's the best!"
¡Tuanis!--same thing.
¡Solo bueno!--means, "Only good!" Used in conversation: "How is your job?" "¡Solo bueno!"
¡Soque!--means, "Hurry up!"
¡Qué chiva!--means, "How cool is that?" or rough equivalent
¡Charita!--teasing lament, mostly used in the country. Same equivalent as "You poor baby" or "Aw, what a bummer".

Have a nice day!

Liked and Crazy

I wonder about the crazy people on the streets, the ones who talk to themselves. Are they really crazy, or is their reality so different from the reality they live in that they don't know which to believe?

One of the girls in the group has taken on the "nerd" role. She's a really nice girl and I don't know what she's like outside of this program, but she talks all the time. It's hard to have a conversation because of the subjects she chooses to talk about--they're often very abstract, and have little meaning. Is this terrible of me to write about this on my blog? I don't mean any disrespect or even to talk about her behind her back--I was only trying to make sense of something:

What happens when one person's reality is ignored or disregarded by others in that reality? If reality is more or less a collective hunch of other people's opinions, then is it fair to say that a reality of disregard and indifference directly affects the person's sanity? Consider: studies show that a child who grows up in a home with little to no encouragement and plenty of demeaning insults will have some sort of self-esteem issue. That child's only reality is rejection and insults. The child will also not assume anything is wrong with his homelife until he compares it with other children from loving families. What then? I see two paths: either the child will seek to please others (teachers, other parents, etc) just to get compliments, which will eventually help his self-esteem, or he himself will reject the "evidence" of his abuse and convince himself it is merely coincedence that other families are like each other and not like his.

If, hypothetically, a person chooses the second choice (even though I think the first is most likely) he will believe the lies for himself, that he really is stupid, or a waste of time, or worthless scum. This becomes reality.

Also, I have in mind a similar case that happened to me when we were missionaries in Mexico: I tried so hard to get the other children to like me, but it was difficult to speak the language, and everyone laughed at my accent. I reverted to talking to my stuffed animals. They didn't laugh at me. They loved me. They always wanted to hear about my day, and they always understood how I was feeling when the other children made fun of me. During that time, I also started talking to myself a lot. I think this is because I desperately wanted someone to ask my opinion, or to ask what I was thinking about. I believed that if I talked quietly out loud, someone would take an interest and ask me what I was saying. I never talked about anything important--I just talked. Most of my subjects were very abstract and hard to follow. Once someone did respond to what I was talking about, I just wanted to have that person listen and agree with everything I said. Perhaps this was a reaction to the negative response I was getting.

I feel like this is more or less the same situation with the girl from the group. It's weird to see it from the other side.

So, crazy people: are they still just crazy?

Bad Weather

Hi again. Sorry for the long lapse of nothingness...Costa Rica has been getting rain all day and violent, hurricane-like winds for the last four days, so our internet connection has been down. This is the first I've been able to get online for a couple days. Also, this week was our hardest week of classes: I had two 3-5 page papers due written entirely in Spanish about subjects I am generally clueless in English, I had a 5 minute oral presentation in Spanish about a free subject that I wasn't able to research due to lack of internet connection, and I had to read 4, 50-page chapters for two different speakers in my Culture class. Needless to say, I'm bushed. I went to bed early last night--it was glorious.

RAIN:
Seriously, I am going to try and record the rain on my digital camera. It doesn't fall like the rain in Indiana, it floats. It's like there is rain in the air, and you can breathe it in, and it hits your face...it's like the fine mist of one of those water sprizters--not enough to get soaked, but just enough to need to change...

LOVE:
Every single couple I have seen in this country has no concept of discretionary affection. PDA city. Seriously. I mean, it's kind of sweet at first to see couples whispering in each others' ears, or holding hands, but after the first two couples, it gets old fast. And only because I can't look away or I'll see another couple making out or something.

MANNEQUINS:
For those of you who didn't already know, I have this weird dislike of mannequins. It's a long story. However, I have seen more mannequins in storefronts here than I have ever seen in the States. Also, it seems that many of the female mannequins are between changes of clothing. At first, I thought it was just a mistake, to have the mannequins nude on the storefront, but given the previous paragraph about love, it gives me pause. Since I have not seen any male mannequins "between outfits", I'm a little suspicious...

ICE CREAM:
Okay. I admit it. My name is Elise Arvidson, and I have a problem. I'm addicted to ice cream. It's just so delicious!! The ticos put fruit in their ice cream--real fruit, not canned--and they douse it in sweetened condensed milk. It's so good.

Okay. I have a deeper topic that I'm going to write next.

Forgot to mention...

By the way,

HAPPY FEBRUARY!!!

Limón, Costa Rica

Okay, so I had it wrong the first time, Limón is NOT in Peru, it is a province of Costa Rica. And no, I wasn't thinking of Peru's capital Lima, I honestly thought that there was also a Limón in Peru. Whatever. So here is a link of a map of Limón, where we were. I apologize that it is in Spanish, but the map itself is fairly self-explanatory... According to the last link, our group visited the purple area labeled No. 1: Limón, Limón.

We got to go through the rainforest to get to Limón, Limón. It was fascinating to watch as the vegetation around the road became more tropical. The provice of Limón is right on the Caribbean sea, so it was very warm. I liked it. There is a small island just off the coast of Puerto Limón (in the cantón of Limón, Limón) where Colombus landed on his third voyage to the Americas. There is also a native reservation the Bribri tribe in that area. For more information, click this link. There are also many tourist-y things about Limón that end up being a problem with the general population; for instance, Limón has the reputation throughout all of Costa Rica of being the "poor" district. The majority of the population in Limón are of African decent, and speak Spanish. The blacks are in the majority because they were the workers of choice for the construction of the railroad, as the Chinese immigrants and the Italians kept getting sick with the New World diseases. The blacks were actually imported from the island of Hispañola (Dominican Republic/Haiti) where they worked in the sugar cane fields to work in Costa Rica because they had been acclamated to the climate and to the diseases. Think of black ghettoes in the U.S. This is how Costa Ricans view Limón.

Our assignment as students was to go and talk to the people on the streets and ask them questions about racism, education, and government. Everyone that my group interviewed said that there was no racism in Limón, because there was such diversity. Even if gringos weren't that common, we were (according to the locals) less likely to be mugged/robbed/etc. in Limón than in any other part of Costa Rica. There are still many Italian-Costa Ricans in the area, and even Chinese-Costa Ricans. But still, the majority are the African-Costa Ricans. We also asked about pobreza, which means poverty and how the locals defined it and what they thought would be a good solution. One gentleman we asked said that education was the answer to poverty, and most of the others said that more opportunities were the answer. We even met a hippie selling jewelry on the street who said that the Costa Rican government was to blame for the poverty in Limón because they put more money into making the tourist sites on the coast more attractive than they spend on cleaning up the cities. There were no public trash cans in the small town where we stayed. Instead, there were heaps of trash on the street corners or by vegetable stands. To walk on the sidewalk usually meant finding the cleanest path through the rubbish.

It was a fascinating trip, and yes, I am darker still. My host family told me today that I look Dominican. I'll take that as a compliment, thank you : )

Also, on Saturday night, the professors hired a band to come and play for us while we ate traditional food of the Caribbean, and we all learned to salsa! I guess I already knew how to salsa, but I thought there was more to the dance. I learned, however, that all Caribbean dances are the same steps, just variations depending on the music. The boys all stood around awkwardly, while the girls learned the steps and danced with each other. Soon, the girls started pulling the boys to the dance floor and teaching them the steps. It was like junior high dances, but with college students. Very funny.

More later on banana plantations, mono-cultures, pineapples, and eco-friendliness...